Kids Will Love the 2022 Jeep Grand Cherokee With Amazon Fire TV

Speaker 1: Today, I'm hanging out in the 20, 22 Jeep grand Cherokee a vehicle that between me and you, I don't necessarily love driving as much as I sort of just like being in it. I mean, don't get me wrong. The dynamics are there. You can check out either of our first drive reviews for a second or third opinion there. What I mean is that it's got a level of luxury and come to the right, that makes boring drives like commutes or long road trips, a comfortable place to be. If you're in the front seat. And there's so many amenities in this summit reserve model that I'm [00:00:30] in today, that even being in the backseat, parked in the parking lot, like I am now is a pretty entertaining place. And we're gonna dig into some of the best features as soon as I finish this round. Speaker 1: Now I love most of what's going on here in the cabin. The Uconnect entertainment is intuitive and easy to understand the Palermo leather on this top spec model looks and feels fantastic. Especially in this two below 10 on black combo [00:01:00] that we've got with the open PO or wood, it just looks fantastic. And the icing on the cake is the panoramic sunroof that we've got above us that lets a whole lot of light in and makes a really open and airy feeling out of what could be a pretty claustrophobic backseat. Now, what I'm not loving is this sea of glossy black plastic here in the center of all this luxury. It tends to look well, little bit cheap. What I especially don't dig is this door right here, that's at the front of the center console. It requires a push [00:01:30] to open and it just tends to get stuck in the closed position and requires way more effort than should feel necessary to get it open. Speaker 1: Now, understand what they're going for here. This cubby is where you've got your combo, us B C in ports, as you use to connect to Android auto or apple CarPlay, plus your wireless phone charger, but in the Jeep grand wagon ear, this is actually a little screen that has a motorized door that opens up. It's a really nice fit and finish there. But here with the manual close, that gets [00:02:00] stuck about 50% of the time. It just feels cheap. Plus glossy black plastic tends to scratch up and look worn a lot faster than the rest of the cabin. And it's a bit of a fingerprint magnet. This one right here is already well on its way to being covered with mine. Now on the bright side, as I mentioned though, you've got a ton of USB ports here. You've got the combo, us B a and C that I mentioned here. Those are gonna connect to of the main infotainment at the back of the console. You've got another pair of combo, a and C ports. And if you opt [00:02:30] for the optional rear seed entertainment, each of those displays is gonna have a type C charging port of its own. Speaker 1: Now, speaking of rear seed entertainment, that's something that's Jeeps. Parent company typically does better than everybody else in the business. And this is no exception. We've got these two large displays. They tilt and they're powered by Amazon fire TV. Yes, just like the fire stick. That's plugged into the TV, probably in your living room. [00:03:00] Now they are powered by the 4g LTE connection that you have built into the Jeep. We've got apps that you can install like, uh, the usual suspects we've got YouTube, we've got Netflix, we've got, of course prime video. Your kids are gonna go nuts back here, not talking about Bruno or whatever it is they do. Now you can control the system either via a touch controls with this fire TV, remote or via a voice command. So you can just hold this microphone button down and say what you want to do. Speaker 1: Go to YouTube. [00:03:30] Just that simple. Now the only question is, do I wanna watch Craig's first look video or anys Hmm. Now again like the fire TV that you may know from home, you can also install games and apps on this and you will control those using the fire TV remote DPAD. Now one annoyance I have with this interface is that while streaming apps are easy to find they're right there on the home screen installed games, just sort of disappear into the interface. And I have to either remove, remember the [00:04:00] exact app name like Pacman 2 56, or just find them in the store. Again. Also keep in mind that because all of this is powered by the 4g connection. If you venture too far off the beaten path, well, you won't have access to your apps. Now, in addition to the USB type C port that I mentioned that you can use to charge your gadgets or, uh, plugin media, each display also features a headphone Jack there's Bluetooth connectivity. Speaker 1: If you want to plug in a set of wireless headphones or a game controller to play onboard games, [00:04:30] that way each screen also features its own H DMI input that along with the, uh, one 10 vol outlet that we've got down here can be used to plug in and play with a console like the 10 switch, if you wanna play more serious games. And yeah, I did pitch this whole video just so that I could spend a whole day hanging out in the back of a Jeep and playing video games. You should check out our full list of the best Nintendo switch, driving and racing games. You can find that over on CNET, we'll have it linked down in the description below. [00:05:00] I'm getting paid to do this. Speaker 1: Now, if you get an example that has the front passenger display, it adds another small screen to the dashboard here in front of the passenger seat, bringing the total count up to three on the dash. Now from here, you can do all sorts of cool things like, uh, watch your own HDMI video source. You can do, uh, co piloting by doing things like searching for destinations and sending them to the main display. You can also control the fire TVs in the back. If you can't [00:05:30] trust small kids to choose their own sources. Now don't worry about distracting the driver too much, but what's going on on this screen. There's a privacy shield built into it. That means that you can actually see what's on this display from the driver's seat. Now, when you're parked the main display, also gains some of the features, including the ability to control the sources on the rear entertainment systems, but not anywhere that you can show H D I video on the domain display, at least not that I could find all of these features [00:06:00] and increase your comforts. Speaker 1: Won't be found on the base model, but if you often take long road trips or have kids or grown man children that you need to keep entertained in the back, the Jeep grand Cherokee or another Stant vehicle that has a similar system like the wagon year or the grand wagon year or soon, the Chrysler Pacific, any of those should probably be near the top of your list. That said you could probably duplicate a lot of this streaming and gaming functionality, just as well with a pair of iPads, but with the built-in screens, you don't have to worry about dropping and breaking them [00:06:30] or charging them, or just forgetting them when it's time to hit the road pros and cons for either solution. I think, be sure to check out at our full first drive review so you can get an idea of what it's like to actually drive this thing in some pretty extreme conditions, as opposed to just hanging out in a parking lot, all day, playing video games, which is perfectly valid by the way, and be sure you're subscribe. So you don't miss. The next time we dive deep into the tech.